Microsoft answers the question of Xbox One region locks

As the details of the Xbox One continue to trickle out following the May 21, 2013 unveiling and the subsequent deluge of facts (some real, some not), we have one more piece of information to confirm about the console: the Xbox One will still feature regional locks.

“Similar to the movie and music industry, games must meet country-specific regulatory guidelines before they are cleared for sale,” A rep from Microsoft confirmed to Digital Trends. “We will continue to work with our partners to follow these guidelines with Xbox One.”

No surprise here. Region locks are nothing new, especially for video games. Different parts of the world have different rules regarding what content is acceptable, both from a moral and a legal standpoint.

Brazil, for example, has incredibly high taxes on video game software and hardware. Whether or not those taxes are fair is another conversation, but without region locks people would simply circumvent the law and order their games and hardware from a foreign vendor. While that might sound like a good thing for Brazilian gamers, it would create mind-bendingly complicated legal problems. All of that can be prevented by a simple piece of software that is already considered part of the industry standard.